In my opinion, 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' wasn't a great film. While I enjoyed a couple of episodes, I was left wanting for more. The more is delivered by the sequel, 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes', but…

A
little into the near future, when civilization has almost gone
extinct because of a virus, Caesar, our beloved ape, leads a new
generation of intelligent apes. They soon realize that a bunch of
humans with tons of artillery exist in nearby lands and need to
access the forests to fix their power source.

In
Focus

While
most apes do not trust humans, Caesar does, and allows humans into
their lands. The rest of the story is about whether his trust is
reciprocated. Scripted by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver,
the movie has better storyline than its predecessor. There is much
substance and better emotions.

While
direction by Matt Reeves is almost perfect, my only problem was with
the pace of the film. Understood that the director was trying to
convey emotions and make a point, but I was kinda perturbed with its
snail pace. There were times it felt more like drama than an action
film. I also quite didn't understand the human storyline much.

On
acting front, Andy Serkis is absolutely brilliant as Caesar. Though
it is performance capture, you can actually see his face on-screen.
He actually out runs his own performance as Gollum in the LOTR
series
with this one. Toby Kebbell also comes up with an excellent act as
Koba. Jason Clarke is decent as Malcolm, while Gary Oldman is pretty
good in his brief appearance.

Music
and background score by Michael Giacchino is way better than the
predecessor film. Cinematography by Michael Seresin is a definite
asset. Editing by William Hoy is decent. While the 3D effects aren't
worth a mention, the visual effects were very good.

Is
it worth your time and money?

But
for its snail pace,
'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' ain't
a bad film. If that doesn't bother you much, give it a watch for
Andy Serkis and the visual effects.